


Haunted

by biblionerd07



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Steve's sadness errands from the Avenger's deleted scene, World War II, sad Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1920783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve never forgets that Bucky's gone.  Bucky's ghost won't let him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunted

“C’mon, Stevie, ‘s too hot in here," Bucky moans.

“What do you want me to do?” Steve snips back. He’s trying to capture the play of muscles in Bucky’s arm as he fans himself and he’s got a cold besides. He can’t control the weather. But then he realizes he knows what Bucky’s going to say a half-second before he says it.

“Let’s go up to the roof.”

The roof has always had a strange allure to Bucky. It’s convenient, sitting up high and catching a breeze, and Steve enjoys sketching the skyline, sure, but Bucky’s almost obsessed with it. Steve’s only argument against it is the four-story climb up a rusting fire escape and the ache in his elbows, the frantic tattoo his heart beats against his sternum as they climb, the dizziness in his head when they get to the top, but it’s not a good excuse, not really, because he knows Bucky will turn around and haul him up every fourth rung, ignoring Steve’s breathless protests, and hold him steady until his head stops spinning. Steve shrugs and follows Bucky to the window and they begin the climb, Steve’s sketchbook tucked into his pants and his pencil wedged between Bucky’s teeth. He plucks it from his mouth and sticks it behind Steve’s ear when they get to the top.

“So much better, huh?” Bucky’s hands on his shoulders are hot and sweaty but Steve doesn’t complain. When he can walk again, they move closer to the edge, legs hanging over the side in a way that would send both their mothers screeching if they’d been alive, and Bucky flops backward against the hot tar while Steve starts to sketch.

But something’s not right—instead of scorching, Steve feels a freezing wind cut through him, and then suddenly he can’t breathe for the frigid cold around him, and there’s a cable hanging off the roof and Bucky’s hands are going around a rod hooked over the cable. He grins over at Steve lazily while fear clenches Steve’s stomach.

“What’re you doing, Buck?” Steve asks. The cable drops off the roof and into nothing—it stops abruptly, no end to it—and it’s so cold Bucky’s hands aren’t even closing around the rod completely. “You’ll fall!” Steve blurts.

“Course I will, pal.” Bucky puffs out his chest proudly. “You asked me to.”

“I didn’t!” Steve cries.

“Now, don’t go switching stories on me, Rogers. You asked me to jump, so here I go.” He turns back one last time, his lips a feral snarl now, and spits, “You knew I’d do it if you asked.” Then he flings himself over the edge, one arm reaching for Steve, while Steve screams and screams—

He wakes with a jerk, tangled in his sheets because he’d been thrashing. His voice is hoarse and he can hear the neighbor banging on the wall. He really had been screaming. He’s trembling like the sickly kid he used to be and he’s dripping sweat mingled with tears and his chest heaves with sobs he tries to keep quiet by stuffing his knuckles into his mouth.

He’s been awake a week in this new century. They keep telling him Bucky died seventy years ago but the wound is fresh, rubbed raw because he can’t stop picking at it. There hasn’t been a night since Bucky died and Steve was alive—before and after the ice—that Steve hasn’t seen him fall. He thinks about his mother. After she died, there would be moments when he’d forget; first thing in the morning, opening his eyes and wondering if she’d gotten off to work okay, if he should take her some supper or save the train fare. Remembering always hurt.

It’s different with Bucky. There’s not a second Steve doesn’t remember. There’s no relief, even in sleep. Bucky’s in every shop window, in the confusing spectacle that is Times Square, in Steve’s dreams, in Steve’s bones. Bucky is agony but Steve can’t leave it alone, awake or asleep.

 

_Let’s hear it for Captain America! This isn’t payback, is it? I thought you were smaller. Sometimes I think you like getting punched. I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal. Shipping for England first thing tomorrow. Keep your elbows loose so you’re ready to punch when they get close. This isn’t a back alley, Steve; it’s war. You’re a punk. Got you some medicine, Stevie. That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. Nice to meet you, kid, name’s James Barnes but you call me James and I’ll knock you silly. Call me Bucky. I had him on the ropes. That dame wouldn’t know a perfect guy if he pinched her on the ass. ‘Cause you got nothing to prove. Glad we won’t have to worry about you living through the winter now that you’re Superman._

Steve clutches his head, trying to exorcise Bucky’s ghost from his brain but not trying all that hard, not really. He sits on the subway, humiliated because he’d brought enough money for a train ride in 1940 but not 2012 and a ticket agent— _you can buy tickets at the kiosk, Captain Rogers_ —had taken pity on him and let him on the train anyway, and he hears Bucky’s voice in his ears above the rumble of conversation from his fellow passengers, the seat next to him empty save for the impression of Bucky Steve carries with him everywhere he goes.

He watches skyscrapers whiz by and neon signs flash through the window and he doesn’t care that nothing’s familiar anymore. It wouldn’t matter if he’d woken up to the exact New York he’d left before the war; everything would be different with Bucky gone.

 

Steve can’t really explain the tight band in his chest when he finds out there are trading cards with his face on them. He’s no stranger to trading cards as a general rule—he and Bucky had never had much disposable cash, but he distinctly remembers memorizing Joe DiMaggio’s stats from the back of the card while Bucky’s lips silently recited Babe Ruth’s beside him.

But to be canonized this way makes Steve uncomfortable. He’s a hero, they keep telling him. He changed the world. He’s to thank for their freedom now, for the agency that’s keeping them safe. But Peggy’s really the one to thank for S.H.I.E.L.D., he knows. Peggy deserves a trading card, showing off her perfect lipstick and her soft smile and the steely determination she always carried in her eyes. All he did was succeed in killing his best friend and fail in killing himself.

“Does Bucky have a trading card?” He blurts out to Agent Coulson. Coulson’s eyebrows rise slightly, but he nods.

“All the Howling Commandos do. You have your own line, though.”

“Do you have them? The boys—the Commandos?” Steve is desperate now without really knowing why, just knows his heart is sliding up his chest and into his mouth, a hand squeezing around it tightly.

“I have them all.” Coulson goes a little pink around the ears with the admission but Steve doesn’t have time to care about that.

“Can I see them?” His voice almost breaks and suddenly in front of him, Bucky’s perched on a log beside Gabe and they’re passing a cigarette between them, mumbling to one another and huffing laughter by the fire, and Dugan’s singing boisterously as he stirs a pot of beans— _always with the fucking beans, Stevie, doesn’t being in Captain America’s special unit get us any perks at all?_ —and Falsworth and Morita are trying to learn dirty phrases in French from Dernier and Steve gasps with the pain of it all and Coulson’s staring at him worriedly.

“I’d be happy to show you the Commandos collection, Captain," Coulson says solemnly, like maybe he’s realized that Steve isn’t some larger-than-life superhero but instead a lost barely-grown man who woke up to a new world without his best friends, and Steve turns quickly away because he’s either going to cry or throw up and neither are acceptable. He wonders what picture of Bucky they used for his card. He feels sure they used one in his blue wool Commandos jacket, and he’d always looked swell in that, but he suddenly finds he wishes they’d used one in his Army uniform, hat jauntily set at an angle and a carefree smirk on his lips, the way Steve often draws him. Bucky’s eyes were already cold, the light dying, by the time they started the Commandos, and Steve had asked him to keep dying.

 

 _I know guys with none of that worth ten of you._ Steve can admit he’d been wrong about Tony, overall, about not making the sacrifice play, but he still, stubbornly, stands by his original statement. He knows what happened to Tony. He knows Howard changed after the war, or maybe the problem was he _didn’t_ change all that much, and he knows that Tony was left to fend for himself too young.

But Steve knows Bucky, that bright spot on any horizon, whose father had harsh words and harsher hands, who had three little sisters and a mother he took care of while his dad drank away the money, who scrounged up extra for Steve and his mom to stretch through the winter. Bucky, who’d kept up a brave face when he’d sent his beloved sisters to live with an aunt back in Ohio after their mother passed because they’d have parental influence and food in their bellies but cried for hours after they were gone because it left him without sloppy little girl kisses on his cheeks and tiny fingers held in his own as they crossed the street. Bucky, who had so much potential and spark and life, who’d dropped out of school to go to work and shoulder his burden but still read textbooks in stolen moments between breaking his back at the docks and sleeping. Bucky, who squirreled away a year’s worth of Brylcreem money to surprise Steve with a few months of tuition to art school. Bucky, who didn’t settle down with any of the willing girls in his horde because he wouldn’t leave Steve alone.

It’s hard for Steve to justify Tony’s prickly attitude and sarcasm and disregard for anyone else’s feelings because of his hard childhood when Steve spent a lifetime beside Bucky, a lifetime of Bucky throwing down his schoolbooks to fight at Steve’s side, a lifetime of Bucky brooding silently when he thought no one would notice but always dredging up a smile for Steve.

Steve pulls into a roadside diner that still has its lights on. His little solo trip isn’t clearing his head like he hoped it would; it’s not actually a solo trip with Bucky’s laughing voice running commentary on everything Steve passes. _Biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, huh? Why the fuck did anyone even make that?_ Steve’s next stop is the Grand Canyon, and he’s terrified—he’s been avoiding it for a few weeks now, going around it in large arcs because that was their plan _together_ , their plan for an _after the war_ that never happened and involved borrowing a car and getting the girls from Ohio for a trip down, the five of them, Bucky planning it in wistful, fake-smiling whispers with his hand on the back of Steve’s neck as they huddled in a tent or a foxhole, and Steve had shivered every time Bucky brought it up because it sounded more like Bucky telling Steve to take his sisters than a trip the five of them were going on together, like Bucky knew somehow he wasn’t going home.

Steve was kidding about the jaws of death. Bucky wasn’t.

 

In the three months Bucky’s been living in Avenger’s Tower with Steve, he’s hardly spoken more than a handful of sentences to anyone who’s not Steve. He mostly only leaves the safety of their apartment for his suggested (ordered) therapy sessions. He moves like a wild animal—wary, scared, and dangerous. He shrinks away from Steve when they sit together on the couch and flinches when Steve reaches for him. Steve can’t decide if he doesn’t care, because he has Bucky back, or if he’d rather Bucky still be dead than this hollow shell of himself.

He hates himself for both feelings.

“Thought we could go to Brooklyn,” Steve says one night, and Bucky jumps at the break in the hours-long silence that’s been reigning. Bucky looks at him but doesn’t say anything. “Our old building’s still there, but it’s all fixed up now.” Steve shrugs. “Just thought maybe you’d wanna see.”

Bucky doesn’t say anything. After a minute, he gets up and walks out of the room. Steve clutches the countertop so hard he’s worried he’ll break it and forces his fingers to relax as he breathes deeply. Why would Bucky care about seeing the new Brooklyn? He doesn’t even remember the old one. Steve had been so excited to have Bucky back, to have his best friend, to have someone who finally _understood_ his strange new life, caught between memories of the past and all the nice things about the future, excited to finally get rid of that whisper in his ear in favor of Bucky’s full volume voice beside him. But Bucky doesn’t remember most of the old life, and he doesn’t care much for the new one, either, and he sure as hell isn’t cracking jokes to make Steve let out an undignified snort.

Even with Bucky alive, heart beating, in the same room, Steve’s still alone with his ghost.

 

“Steve. Hey, Stevie.” Bucky’s breath is hot across Steve’s face and Steve jerks a little as he opens his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” His voice is scratchy with sleep as he realizes it’s the middle of the night and Bucky’s crept into his room. Bucky’s kneeling beside Steve’s bed and Steve’s eyes are full of him, full of his hair that’s longer now than it ever was but still sleep-tousled more on the left side than the right because of how Bucky sleeps, full of Bucky’s stubble threatening to hide the cleft in his chin, full of the crinkles around Bucky’s eyes, and in his fog of still mostly-sleep Steve is loose and unguarded and reaches out a hand to touch Bucky’s face.

Bucky doesn’t jump away. His eyes are almost hidden as he looks down at Steve’s hand on his cheek, following Steve’s thumb as it sweeps across the sharp arch of his cheekbone.  
  
“Sorry," Steve whispers are he comes back to the present and pulls back. Bucky tips his head a little, following Steve’s hand, and Steve’s whole body goes still. “What is it, Buck?”

Bucky drops his eyes and he worries almost unconsciously at Steve’s sleeve with his right hand. He always used to slip a finger under Steve’s suspenders, just rubbing at the stiff fabric between two fingers, idly picking at Steve’s clothes while they lay talking on a too-small bed or a patch of grass or the roof. His fingers brush against Steve’s bicep inside his sleeve and Steve shivers. Bucky doesn’t say anything, just kneels there beside Steve, playing with his sleeve and breathing into Steve’s face.

Steve slowly, carefully, stretches his arm out and puts his hand back on Bucky’s face, and the bright dots of light from Bucky’s eyes disappear for a second as he closes them. It’s too dark for Steve to make out much more than Bucky’s shape, but he’s had every detail of Bucky’s face memorized since he was nine years old and his hands know the terrain even if his memory ever fails.

Bucky surges forward suddenly, tipping off his knees and burying his face against the side of Steve’s body, forcing a breath out of Steve with an _oof_. He rubs his nose right along Steve’s ribs, breath hitching a little, and Steve can’t make his own breathing normal for a second. The hand that had been on Bucky’s face slides to the back of his neck and tangles a little in his long hair. Steve can feel Bucky’s lips moving against his shirt, tickling a little and making his muscles tense up.

“What?” Steve asks. Bucky used to do this, too, talk face-down into a pillow or his arms or Steve’s shoulder, and Steve’s out of practice with understanding his muffled words. Bucky repeats himself, louder, and Steve feels it against his skin as he hears it.

“Miss you.”

Steve’s hand tightens a little, squeezing the back of Bucky’s neck, and Steve scoots down so he can rest his head against Bucky’s. He’s not sure what to say, a feeling so foreign with Bucky until the last few months when Bucky had returned. _I’ve been right here the whole time_ , a petulant part of him wants to point out.

“Miss you, too," Steve whispers back instead, and a little shudder goes through Bucky. Steve slips his hand under Bucky’s arm and tugs at him and almost cries when Bucky obligingly climbs up into Steve’s bed. Steve moves over, and they’re scooting and wriggling and Steve’s foot catches Bucky’s calf and Bucky gets Steve with an elbow to the back and it’s like they’re eleven again and trying to find a comfortable way to lie together on Bucky’s little bed because he didn’t want Steve to sleep on the couch cushions on the floor, and Steve is suddenly laughing and the tight feeling he’s been carrying in his chest for the three years he’s lived in this new world is suddenly easing up a little.

Bucky huffs an affronted breath. “You laughing at me, punk?” He demands, sliding his arm around Steve’s waist. Steve ducks his head a little to hide the tears springing into his eyes, but Bucky chucks him under the chin and makes him look up so he can see Bucky’s tearing up, too. Steve leans forward enough to rest their foreheads together.

“Missed you every second since that damn train," Steve chokes out. Bucky nuzzles their noses together, his lower lip trembling a little as he tries to get himself together.

“I didn’t remember you," he whispers, anguished. “They took you away from me.” He hushes Steve when he tries to interrupt. “But when you said my name, I just…I still didn’t remember, not really, but I knew. I knew you were important, and they tried to take you away again and it didn’t work because you wouldn’t let them.”

“Never let them again. Not them, not anyone," Steve promises. His hand is running up and down Bucky’s side—smoothing the hair away from Bucky’s face, sliding down Bucky’s metal shoulder and elbow, across his ribs and to his hip.

“Missed you every second since I remembered.” Bucky’s lips quirk into a shaky half-smile. “Couldn’t remember how to not miss you, I guess, not even with you right next to me.”

“You still gonna miss me now?” Steve asks hesitantly. He’s not even sure what he means, but it’s some kind of question that encompasses _are you really with me this time_ and _please stay_ and _are things different now_.

Bucky chews his lip. “Gonna try not to,” he offers. “Might be kinda tough some days, though.”

Steve nods vigorously, rattling Bucky’s head with his vehemence. “I know. I know it will. But I’m gonna be here. And I’m gonna try not to…push you into being someone you’re not anymore.”

Now Bucky nods, slower than Steve had, and sighs, burrowing closer into Steve and burying his face in Steve’s neck. “You had to live without me for a while," he murmurs against Steve’s skin. “That’s a damn tragedy, not seeing this face every day.” He’s joking, laughing quietly, and Steve laughs a little, too, but there’s nothing untrue in the words.

“You kidding?” He teases. “You know how many dames are lining up for me now that you’re not stealing ‘em away?”

“Ah, you dog.” Bucky’s voice is slow with sleep and Steve thinks it’s the best sound he’s ever heard. His eyelashes are fluttering against Steve’s skin. “Thought girls these days would be too smart to fall for your muscles.”

“Finally smart enough to quit chasing after jerks like you.”

“You’re a punk.” It’s slurred into his neck as Bucky drops off. Steve pulls Bucky tighter against him, makes sure they’re both snuggled under the thick blanket. He kisses Bucky’s temple and finally lays the ghost to rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was going to end before Bucky came back, or would end with Bucky coming back but not being the Bucky Steve missed, but I am like physically incapable of not giving these boys some happiness, so the angst had to be tempered with bedtime snuggles.


End file.
